The scaling journey of startups is often chaotic. To help navigate this chaos, Index Ventures has launched an app that supports startups with a data-driven approach to decision-making. For this app, Index Ventures analyzed data from over 200,000 anonymized profiles representing hires at companies scaling from zero to 1,000 employees. They generated 250 hypotheses from this data and shared critical insights into the startup scaling process at the Data Driven VC summit 2024. Here's what we learned:

• One of the most surprising findings is that regardless of the startup's stage, the amount of time spent on people-related matters remains relatively consistent. The only thing that changes is that you might focus on onboarding new employees as an early-stage startup, while later-stage companies focus on aligning their teams.

• Another crucial decision a startup has to make is when to delegate product leadership, such as hiring a Chief Production Officer (CPO). During the talk, Martin from Index Ventures mentioned that this delegation typically occurs at a later stage than expected. This allows early-stage startups to maintain close control over product development until they have reached a significant scale.

• The 125-500 headcount stage is crucial for building a robust management team. Martin advised against hiring the entire management team at once. Instead, he recommends a phased approach because it allows the startup to remain stable and to integrate the new leaders properly.

With their new app, Index Ventures helps startups to make fast, data-driven decisions. At MoonAI, we also use data-driven decision making to support investors during the due diligence process. Feel free to get in touch if you'd like to check us out!